Food Desert Reading.docx

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School

York University

Department

Kinesiology & Health Science

Course

KINE 1000

Professor

Hernan Humana

Semester

Fall

Description

Food Desert Reading
 Food insecurity – inadequate or insecure access to food in the context of financial constraints –
is a serious health problem
 Little neighbourhood characteristics in relation to the problem
o Local area food environment
o Neighbourhood social capital
 Food desert – poor access to healthy food
 Low-income neighbourhoods usually have many fast food stores
o Low income areas in inner-city neighbours have the poorest access to supermarkets by
walking – but do have public transportation
 This study did not look at neighbourhood features or household level-food
purchasing
 Australian study show associations between perceptions of local food availability, accessibility
and affording and frequency of fruit and fast food consumption among women
 Many programmes to help offset problems of household food security – community kitchens,
community gardens, food banks – tend to be in low-income neighbourhoods – but proximity to
these programmes to household food security status is not known
 Neighbourhood social capital – perceptions of social cohesion and trust in one’s community –
could predict food security status
o Low social capital may be an outcome of maco level conditions that also lead to poor
health
 This study
o Low income families Toronto
o Objectives - examine association between house hold food security – geographic access
to food retail and food programmes and – perceived neighbourhood social capital
Methods
 2 years
 Only families with children
 12 neighbourhoods – more than 40% low income
 Included families living in market and subsidized rental units
 Respondents eligible if
o At least one child 18 or lower
o Live in rental accommodations/dwelling for one month
o Fluent in English
o Gross household income was at or below threshold
 Interview was made – to elicit information on household sociodemographic characteristics, food
security status, food shopping habits use of community food programmes and neighbourhood
social capital
 484 families  GIS – used to find supermarkets – 80% of families shopped as discount supermarkets
o Mapped food banks, community gardens etc.
Measures
 Household food security survey module used to assess food security over 12 months prior to
study
 Thresholds – categorized families as food secure or insecure
o Severely insecure also became a category
 ArcGIS – measured distance
o 1-2km
 Surveys were conducted to see where families shopped within their neighbourhood and
transportation costs
 Assess neighbourhood capital used a scale 1 -7  3 or low was low capital
Results
 Two thirds of families were food insecure about a quarter were severely food insecure in 12
months prior t study
 Only 1% variation in food security and less than 1% of the variation in severely food insecurity
 Lower odds of household food insecurity were observed with increasing income and among
families which the household head and or his/her partner were immigrant to Canada, while
families whose main source of income was welfare had higher odds of food insecurity
 Lower odds of severe food insecurity observed with increasing income, whereas higher odds of
severe insecurity were apparent among house hold reli